Title:To Be Free Once More (That’s Worth Fighting For) Fandom:Star Wars Prequel Era Author: Batsutousai Rating: Mature Warnings: Alternate Universe, Qui-Gon survives, Jedi Shadow!Obi-Wan, Jedi culture positive, Coruscant Guard deserve better, clone trooper dehumanisation, institutional abuse, discrimination, learning to trust, Jedi and clone trooper relationships, strangers to friends to lovers, idiots in love, trans/nonbinary/agender clone troopers, Summary: As a Jedi Shadow, Obi-Wan hadn’t expected to have much to do with the clone troopers. Until, suddenly, he does.
Notes: This fic will be 15 chapters long, with the final chapter going up at some point on the 17th of May, for those who prefer to binge.
CHAPTER ONE
“Aayla gets on well with her troopers,” Obi-Wan commented, having heard about her friendship with her commander from Quinlan, who seemed torn between being overprotective of her presumed virtue, and delighted that she’d been paired with a commander that she got on with. “Anakin, too.”
“Anakin has never been particularly comfortable with authority figures,” Qui-Gon commented drily. “His refusal to act like one was wholly expected.”
“Yes, I wonder where he got that particular mindset from,” Obi-Wan muttered loud enough for Qui-Gon to hear, and studiously ignored his former master’s chuckle. “When are we dropping from hyperspace next?” He wasn’t certain about comming Anakin for advice, but Aayla might have some actionable suggestions, and it had been far too long since he’d last spoken to her.
Qui-Gon hummed, then used the Force to call his comm to him, typed something on it, then set it down and went back to his trimming.
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at the complete lack of answer, then left the bed, which he’d been lying on, since the only chair was serving as a plant holder, to kneel in front of Qui-Gon’s footlocker, delighted when it opened at his first guess for the code.
“What, exactly, are you doing?” Qui-Gon asked, tone dry, but presence in the Force warm and amused.
“Disregarding your presumed boundaries,” Obi-Wan returned cheerfully, even as he pawed through his former master’s belongings.
Qui-Gon huffed, then called, “Come in, Commander!” when the quiet doorbell chime sounded.
“You asked to see me, General?” Commander Cody asked, once they’d stepped into the room far enough for the door to close again behind them, curiosity curling through the Force around them.
“Yes,” Qui-Gon agreed, setting down his sheers and turning to face the clone. “Obi-Wan was asking whether there was any way to make the troopers more comfortable with him mingling with them.”
Obi-Wan groaned into the footlocker; he should have guessed that his former master’s solution would be to simply ask one of the clones. “If the answer is there isn’t one,” he said, before the commander could open their mouth to respond, “please just tell me so; I’m perfectly capable suffering the next week dealing with Master Jinn.”
Ok a couple ppl have asked, so I’m adding this info. The music video I reference in this comic is the one for Giovanni Wannabe by Pinguini Tattici Nucleari. :)
This is a series of 10 tweets posted on August 20th 2022 by user “Housing 4 All is Hot” (Twitter Handle @ahouse4all)
That thread asking people how they would get out of homelessness if they only had $20 is literally people saying “I would simply just’” and then saying something that is literally impossible, unavailable, or has been made illegal by local city governments.
“I’d find a minimum wage job and save up money while I stayed at a shelter!” Who is hiring you when you don’t have an address, your ID, or a car? Shelter is full. Also you have to leave the shelter at 6am and show up at 1pm to get a bed. You also have to pay to stay there.
I would panhandle and save!“ Panhandling does not pay. Most people don’t have cash anymore + are hostile to unhoused ppl. It’s illegal in a lot of places = huge citation or in jail. You also have to buy food and supplies daily. They get stolen or thrown out by the cops.
All while this is happening your mental health deteriorates. People don’t respond to you when you speak to them and you’re kicked out of shops and restaurants constantly. Your stuff is constantly getting stolen. Assaults are common. You have to stay awake at night to stay safe.
There are more people falling into homelessness every day than can be lifted out because of skyrocketing rents, low wages, lack of healthcare, mass incarceration, domestic violence, etc. There is no "just” getting out of it when you’re in it.
Also to all these scenarios add more layers of oppression: Being disabled, woman, elderly, LGBTQ+, a person of color, and the more difficult it is. It’s not a coincidence that even though Black people only make up 8% of the population they’re 40% of unhoused people - it’s racism.
LA has made it illegal to sit, stand, lie, sleep in 20% of the city. If you don’t know all those areas by memory you could get arrested or fined at any moment if a cop comes by. Sweeps are constant so you have to memorize that schedule or all your stuff gets thrown out.
How do you go to any appointments for benefits if places don’t let you come inside with your tent/backpack/belongings that will get stolen the second you leave them unattended? What do you do when you don’t have the $35 for your ID that’s been thrown away every time you get one?
Also you’re unhoused in this scenario which means your credit and rental history is probably bad. Even if you miraculously saved up the $5,000 you need to move into an apartment- a landlord is never going to rent you one with bad credit/eviction history.
I could go on and on but it’s terrifying how uninformed people are about how little help there is for unhoused people when the vast majority of people are just a couple paychecks away from being unhoused themselves.
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This is such an important post. I was homeless. I know homeless people.
There are a hundred more reasons why “I would just” doesn’t work. And the people who think they know are two things. First, incredibly arrogant and assuming and have no idea how hard it is. And second, the biggest victims when the end up on the street. The predators smell their blood from a mile away and attack. I cannot stress this enough. The people who talk online about how they know just what people should do are the weakest of the weak on the skids. They know everything and think they have it all sorted out. These are the people that end up destroyed by the streets. Because out there…The world doesn’t give a shit about how you think things should work.
Nobody gets off the streets without help, from friends, social agencies, grass roots charities and sometimes family. But family is usually the least likely help. And the big charities with CEOs and boards of trustees and infrastructure help no one. They may try to convince you they help. But there is no one who can say “Oh yeah I was helped by Homeless Co.”. Don’t donate to them. Give to the people who work in store front charities and little offices in the shit. If they have a nice boardroom in a shiny tower, that’s where your money is going.
We need to reach out and help each other. I cannot help financially, but I can tell my story and advocate and offer the real story. And not the edited 3 minute blurb on the 6 o'clock news.
Reblogging again for Jeff’s valuable insights.
Knowing a few people who work for those big agencies in shiny towers myself, I can tell you that very little actual assistance makes it to the people who need it.
The lower and mid-level employees working for these agencies might be very well-meaning - the people I personally know who do that kind of work do genuinely want to help, but the whole structure of the orgs they a part of works against their efforts. And that is by design, because the higher-ups are not in it to help.
The system is fundamentally broken. If you think you as an individual could help yourself via some “I would simply just” thing, you are wrong. And you are closer to being on the streets than the folks who are trying to convince you that homeless folks are there because they are somehow “lesser” human beings. We all need to be fighting this heartless, broken system.
UBI would prevent a lot of it. Most of them only needed a few thousand dollars to stay off the street.
My mom (72) recently downsized and moved close enough to me that checking on her in person regularly is not really out of my way, but when I was obvious about it she wouldn’t let me “stop-by” because she was, “fine”.
Well, one day I actually needed some aluminum foil so I called and asked if I could borrow enough to cover a baking tin because I didn’t want to run to the store. She said sure, but when I got to her house she needed furniture moved, a wasp nest removed, and her coffee pot fixed. After I got the foil I mentioned each thing cautiously and she let me take care of them for her. So next weekend I’ll need a cup of rice and check on her again.
Don’t “let them think” they’re helping you.
Just LET THEM HELP YOU.
“Hey Mom, do you know how to fix a button? I lost one off my good shirt and I really need to learn.”
“Dad, how do you get your spaghetti sauce so good? If I come over on Saturday can you show me?”
“Playing cards sounds great, Mrs. Simmons, I’ve never learned canasta.”
Elders are also part of your community and they have much to teach you. Exchange. Don’t condescend.
Can we also extend this to disabled people please? I feel like we face a very similar kind of condescension (and obviously there is a significant overlap). I actually know lots of things most people don’t.
You might think that I’m joking when I say that we need cyborg rights to be codified into law, but I honestly think that, given the pace of development of medical implants and the rights issues raised by having proprietary technologies becoming part of a human body, I think that this is absolutely essential for bodily autonomy, disability rights, and human rights more generally. This has already become an issue, and it will only become a larger issue moving forwards.
No but seriously we need cyborg rights, in case you don’t know how many people count as cyborgs here are some examples;
People with cochlear implants are cyborgs
People with pacemakers are cyborgs
People with insulin pumps are cyborgs
There are even edge cases revolving around how much electricity and integration into the body are necessary to make someone a cyborg.
People with replacement hips or other bones are by some definitions cyborgs
People with implanted medical devices such as artificial valves or stents are by some definitions cyborgs
People with prosthetic limbs are by some definitions cyborgs
People with ostomy bags are by some definitions cyborgs
People in wheel chairs, electric or not, are by some definitions cyborgs
The list could go on but I think I made my point that cyborgs are a lot more than just people with robot arms, they are the disabled deserving of the rights to the technology their lives literally depend on.
This is needed.
Earlier this year, a woman was forcibly deprived of a brain implant that was treating her epilepsy because the company that made the implant went bankrupt. Here’s a link to one of several articles about it:
This story happened back in the 2010s according to the first article but is still relevant. Also if my cochlears were repossessed by the company for some asinine reason I would literally stop being able to do 80% of the things I do and my future would be ruined. Cyborg rights are necessary and should have been codified decades ago
This was in 2020, and the patients weren’t even informed of it - one day their eyes just stopped working because the company that made them went out of business.
Annual reminder that if your neighbor is suddenly building a shed or a big tent in their backyard for no apparent reason, that is not a sudden disregard for zoning laws and they are not attempting to piss off your homeowners association. They are Jews.
I think the most fucked up thing about autistic/allistic communication is that an autistic person can be doing 95% of the work to bridge the gap between the two of them, and the allistic could still be like “omg, you’re so much work to be around, this is the worst” because the gap is just so large that 5% feels like a monumental effort to them, but they’re saying this to an autistic person who has been putting so much more effort into not just their relationship, but literally the majority of the relationships they have
It’s just exhausting to be the one putting in 95% of the effort and be told that 5% is too much for someone else to give over and over again
The exhausting feeling when you finally stop masking and the pressure is released is sooo much worse than most feelings in my opinion.
or when my Parents have been actively for 16 years Just attempting to ignore my diagnosis and hide it from me while i struggled my way through life, and then when I’m having a meltdown to yell at me to stop because it’s giving you anxiety…
having terrible experiences with allistic people my whole life and then finally making friends who are also autistic was terribly freeing, but then meeting neurotypical people who have patience and understanding of me is just * chef kiss *
you know how theyll do shakespeare stagings where the setting is modern day but nothing else is different so its just a wierd anachronistic mess in the best way? i think we should do that with arthuriana
lancelot three weeks late to rescue guinevere because metro doors closed on his gay little knight cape forcing him to ride till the end of the line at which point he gets fined for fare dodging because he only paid for a zone one ticket and hes crying and trying to explain that he didn’t actually intend to travel to zone three but somehow he ends up slaying several bystanders and fleeing into the night
twitter is like. DNI with me unless you are a perfect clone of me. and tumblr is like. hi. you share exactly one interest with me. would you like to subliminally influence each other’s thought patterns through funny text posts until we develop a hive mind? yeah? cool.
government considers you able to work if you can give anything more than 0%
employers consider you unhireable if you give anything less than 100%
it occurred to me recently that this may be somewhat on purpose.
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not saying there’s a conspiracy or something, I’m just saying the people in power have a pretty strong economic motivation to interpret the stats this way.
I’ve given this advice before and I’ll give it again:
if you are looking at the checkbox where you have to self-identify whether or not you have a disability,
only check it off if you are going to request a specific accommodation
only do so after you have already been offered the job.
Companies have absolutely no reason to know you are disabled unless you need to get accommodations. And if you do need accommodations, it is so much better to have an offer letter in hand when you request them - at that point, the company will need to actually officially rescind its offer if they want to try to discriminate, and any company that has even heard of the ADA knows they are on dodgy legal ground doing that given that they would have to do so in writing and provide some kind of valid reason for it, rather than just ghosting you like they would probably do if you had not already been offered the job. You have the legal right to wait until you are hired to disclose that you have a disability, and you should avail yourself of that right.
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9:16am
July 2, 2023
23,908 notes
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